Speeding up Internet in Lebanon

“Other (fiber optic) cables in the region were connected before. In those countries the internal governments have more manoeuvrability,” he said. “We have had big periods of paralysis.”

There are still fears among private Internet Service Providers (ISP) that Ogero, which controls around 80 percent of Lebanon’s Internet cables, will further delay on providing the upgraded service.

Sehnawi disagrees. “There is not a single person in the country that can obstruct the decision. It will be implemented in a matter of hours and days,” he said.

Two major ISPs which rely on Ogero for bandwidth supply, Terranet and IDM, have already upgraded their Internet services to comply with the decree.

Separately, a 3G service is currently in its pilot stage, with 4,000 Lebanese currently sampling the product before its official release later this month.

Sehnawi said the lack of cheap, fast Internet in Lebanon has severely affected individuals and the business community here.

“It has affected the government tremendously. It has impacted our society to its core,” he said, adding that Lebanon has lost out whereas the ‘digital economy’ has been responsible for 25 percent of recent job creation in Europe.

Tech-savvy Lebanese entrepreneurs, he says, have been looking elsewhere for business. We have been exporting our young generation,” he said.